Edmund Burke: “We state our experience, and then we come to the manly resolution of acting in contradiction to it.”

This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.

This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.

Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.

We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.